The Chance for the World Bank

Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-205) and index.

"This book is an authoritative and radical manifesto for urgently needed changes in development cooperation. It proposes that unless the World Bank takes radical steps, the first decade of the century will witness an ever-widening gulf between the poor and the rich countries. Jozef Ritzen presents a picture of the world at a crossroads. One road leads to substantial (radical) reform in the rich countries, in combination with a substantial push towards better governance in developing countries. The other leads to further increases in inequality between rich and poor countries. Millennium development goals "" such as achieving universal primary education by 2015 or reducing child mortality by two-thirds in 2015 "" have had widespread support. Those will not be reached if the world follows this road; unfortunately, the signs suggest that it has already started to do so. A Chance for the World Bank provides an overview of the challenges faced by the World Bank and explores how it has organized itself to deal with its mission. This book proposes that the World Bank still has a chance to achieve its stated goals; in order to do so, it needs to take a number of radical steps: to create a level playing field in trade for the developing countries; to harmonize aid and save developing countries from the gigantic transaction costs of aid; and to promote governance in developing countries and to reduce rigorously induced corruption by multinationals."